


The Apprentice Type

by Upupanyway



Category: Daredevil (Comics)
Genre: Apprenticeship, Gen, M/M, Mentorship, sam gets to go to college, set during the soule run but also probably not comics compliant
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-08-09
Packaged: 2020-08-13 11:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20173309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Upupanyway/pseuds/Upupanyway
Summary: Matt's accidentally taken a bird under his wing.





	The Apprentice Type

The empty warehouse echoed the pair of beating hearts in its stillness. The beats were everywhere, they were nowhere. The building was empty but for an unfamiliar mass upstairs and Matt couldn't quite grasp what it was supposed to be. No furniture, no running water, no electrical work. All the general noise of a building eerily absent. Devoid of everything, devoid of life or any evidence thereof.

No, no. He was wrong. There were two other steady beats in the room. One, a listless and unconscious rhythm, thick with blood. The other, a steady metronome tick. A watch. A bomb. Could go either way, really.

Sam, Blindspot, walked into the space cautiously. Matt let the fall of his footsteps peter out and land on the walls. No embellishments. Nothing to investigate except on the second floor.

"Up the stairs," Daredevil instructed. The younger man nodded and raced up the corridor. He clamoured clumsily, recklessly. It was a tense and quiet cacophony. Blindspot. Bomb. Heartbeat. Bomb. Bomb. Blindspot.

"Holy shit!" cried the latter.

Matt scrunched up his nose to it. The smell, the clamminess of air. It was familiar, uncomfortably so. The unmistakable presence of viscera and decaying flesh, made sour with time in the polluted New York air. Old bodies, strung up together in a grotesque display.

Muse, at it again with another visual horror Matt could not appreciate on any level.

"It's a heart," Sam deadpanned as he made his way further into the space, careful not to touch anything. "See these arms? These are the vena cava. And, uh, the intestines sticking out are like-"

"I get the picture." Matt paled but approached the centre of the mass, suspended in the middle of the room using string and wood. "There's a bomb in here, I think."

He stretched his senses into the squishy, moist, rancid flesh to locate it while Sam took the piece in, step by step.

"Oh, no," Sam gasped.

"What is it?" snapped the mentor, losing focus.

"It's a child. I recognize her. It's, uh, she's from a few nights ago when-"

"When the B-tier villains shot up that bank?" croaked Matt in a way that indicated the opposite of hope.

"You couldn't have saved her," Sam started.

"Do you like it?" A stinging voice asked from behind him. A ghost of stale breath hit him. "It's commemorating you, after all."

"What?"

"An itemized list of your victims."

"What do you mean?" the Daredevil frowned, sweating with guilt. Another familiar sensation.

"Selena Marquez, Chatham Brier, Youssef Alhaji," Blindspot starts saying from beside him. He's facing a wall.

Matt frowns.

"Don't recognize them? They're-"

"The ones I couldn't save." Another guilt trip. There were too many in his life, haunting him. "But why?"

"Well, it's art," Muse explained simply. "I admit, it took a while to track everyone down, but here's the crew in their complete glory. The ones who could be here anyway. Some of them were less workable."

"You shouldn't have." Matt was still searching for the ticking mass. It was in the direct centre. The heartbeat was fading. He sucked in a breath and started to dig.

"It's not very courteous to ruin someone else's hard work like that, you know."

Matt didn't care. Whoever was in the middle of this very likely did not deserve it.

"Don't you get the symbolism?" 

Matt shook his head while he sensed Sam getting ready to pounce at Muse. There were some other issues at hand. The blood that was seeping through his gloves, for example.

"Who the fuck is this even for?" Matt grumbled as he found purchase on an arm. An arm with a pulse, weak as it was.

He felt it just as Sam tackled Muse, his staff landing with a loud and heavy sound at the base of his skull. Unflinching, the artist turned around, head swiveling from side to side to search for the attacker. Sam was behind him again, weapon out, playing careful.

The person in Matt's grip gasped loudly as he took in the open air again and coughed wetly.

Of course the ticking was coming from his stomach. Of fucking course. Because Daredevil only uses blunt weapons.

"Daredevil?" The voice sputtered.

Fuck. Fucking shit.

"Foggy?"

"Ma- Daredevil," Foggy rasped with shaking breaths. His heartbeat was speeding up again, airways now open to the oxygen of the warehouse. "There's a knife in my pocket, you're gonna have to-"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay. Just give me a moment." Shitshitshit.

"You're gonna have to dig for it, buddy. He broke both my humeri."

"Isn't it grand? It's a nihilistic statement on the impotence of vigilantism. The limits of salvation and violence. I really have outdone myself," Muse called out gleefully. Sam had him in a headlock against a wall. "I'm dedicating it to the hero of Hell's Kitchen. The prize of the city. You're so beautifully complex."

"Why him?" Matt spat, panicking. He twirled a scalpel in his hand, unsure of how to proceed. "Why not- why not Murdock? He's also a friend of mine." _ Anyone but Foggy _.

"I'm not sure if I've seen you make quite as many furtive midnight visits to Murdock's balcony," he mused. "I didn't mean to assume, but I needed the best materials for my work. I'm sure you underst-"

He was cut off with a blow to his face. The butt of strong wood to his forehead. Serious brain damage, if the man's body would just react normally.

"He's down," Blinspot observed, a little disbelieving. He took out some rope and started to tie him up, for all the good that'll do.

Matt's body convulsed as he cut into Foggy's flesh. Foggy screamed and Matt gave him a glove to bite on.

As soon as he pulled the treacherous box out of Foggy's body, he shoved it away as far as he could. Sam stepped up to it, lifting his mask to study it carefully. He dug around the wires with precise fingers.

"Hey, boss. It's a dud. Nothing's connected. It's just a box with a clock in it," the engineering prodigy gawked. It was a trap.

And Foggy continued to bleed out.

"Call the ambulance. Call the police," begged Matt desperately, lifting Foggy out of his shirt to put pressure on the wound. He imagined the karmic laughter. That of all these people he failed to save, Foggy could be amongst them. A coin flip. Asphyxiation by Muse, blood loss from Matt. Dead either way.

Matt shivered at the thought of Foggy dead. Foggy, who was weeping drowsily under him.

It was an eternity before the ambulance could take him. Matt lay in the blood in his wake while an officer nudged him carefully.

"You okay, there, Daredevil?" She called to him. Blindspot was already long gone.

"I can't be here. I gotta go," Matt said blankly.

"Can we get a witness statement, at least? You saved a life, here. Vincent van Gore is headed to maximum security. I need something to tell the boss man." She was trying for humour, Matt could tell. It wasn't working.

"He's going to be back. You can't lock up a person like that." Matt staggered towards the window and unlocked it. It was slippery with blood. He was slippery with blood. He let the wind hit him and the chilled fluid hung on him like a curse.

"The witness statement?"

"Ask Nelson when he wakes up." And Matt was gone. He let his body fall to mere feet above the ground before riding that momentum back upwards.

-

Matt's day job had been running circles around him for months. None of the other lawyers respected him enough to trust him with a case. He was under strict supervision because of his truancy. There was something about working for the DA's office that was well and truly draining. And Foggy wasn't there.

They wouldn't miss him if he missed another day. So Matt bought some flowers and some balloons (he made sure to get the shittiest ones because those are the type Foggy liked best, the ones on sale that no one else would touch. Apparently, they featured ducklings for some indiscernible reason) to seek out his best friend.

"Knock knock," he said as he made his way into the hospital room. Foggy was there, cheery as ever. Or, as much as can be expected of him in the situation. He didn't give his signature wave.

"Matt, over here! About thirteen paces in front of you. Third compartment. Say hi to Rico on the way."

Matt did as he was told with as much joviality as he could muster considering the circumstances. His stomach flipped at the remembered sensation of the warm scalpel in his hand.

"How are you?" Matt asked him as he walked up to the bed.

"Ask the poor nurse who has to wipe my ass for me."

"Exquisite imagery, thank you."

Matt handed him the haul. A bouquet of relatively unobtrusive hyacinths and carnations. A duckling balloon. Foggy chuckled. "Aw, thanks, buddy. You can leave them on the bedside. I don't really have working arms right now."

Matt tried to smile.

"Hey don't give me that look. I'm okay. Daredevil saved me, remember?" He said gently. "Have a seat. There's a chair just behind you.

Matt took halting breaths and sat down as close to Foggy as the room's architecture would allow. He kept his sweaty palms at his thighs and faced his lap, guiltily. Rico coughed a little from beyond their little bubble, distant, forgotten.

"You almost died," he stated simply.

"But I didn't. _ Daredevil saved me _," reiterated Foggy seriously. It wasn't enough. Because no matter what happened, Matt would still know what it's like to feel him bleeding out from the wounds he inflicted. He knew the reek of Foggy's life bleeding out of him.

And there was guilt at valuing one life over all the others. Where the violence didn't bother him but it was different with Foggy. Because he knew Foggy, and he loved him.

"I'm still sorry. Foggy, I almost lost you."

"I was drowning in blood before he came along. But I knew he would come. And we both made it out. I trust him completely."

It was a lie, but what's a small lie between them for the sake of comfort? Matt knew how much he had failed his best friend over the years. It wasn't fair that he kept being forgiven. It wasn't fair to Foggy that Matt chased after that loyalty.

"How are you?" Foggy asked. And he had almost died and it wasn't fair of him to ask that.

"I almost lost you." Matt felt the tears fall down his face. "I know we haven't really been talking since- since everything. And I'm sorry about all of it. I just- I can't do it anymore. I need to know you're okay."

Foggy sighed and shook his head a little. "We're still best friends. Like it or not, we've been together for decades and I can't seem to extricate you from my life." Matt frowned. "I wouldn't have it any other way."

Matt reached for Foggy's hand where his fingers poked out from his cast and retreated immediately when he hissed in pain.

"Sorry."

"No, Matt, come here," Foggy requested. Matt inched his fingers back to his friend's and Foggy let his fingers relax over Matt's where they hovered over the metal frame. It was a tender touch, suspended, unsupported, but real nonetheless. "I'll be out of here in no time and I can treat you to some coffee. Work through our issues?"

"I'd like that." Matt smiled.

"Do you guys need space?" Rico called out nervously. "I ain't got nothing against it, but I can leave if you fellas need some privacy. Request some time in the lounge?" he offered generously.

"No we're good! Thanks, though," Foggy chuckled.

Matt chuckled along, jolting from the moment and back into reality. He let his hand drop back down to his lap.

-

Sam and Daredevil were on the roof, letting themselves relax after an eventful evening.

"He just walked into the fire?" Matt asked, incredulous.

"Yeah. I think he thought it was more poetic that way. Completed his narrative arc better than trying to kill me again," the younger man shrugged. He dug a hand into a bag of salted chips he had gotten from a vending machine a few floors down.

"Weird guy," Matt nodded. "I'm glad that's over. Congrats on defeating your archnemesis, I guess."

"Hear, hear." They leaned back on the wall, taking in the night. A few muggers and petty criminals were about, but Matt could hear them being taken care of by other heroes in the vicinity. Perhaps this trust thing was worth it at times. "How's Nelson doing?"

"About how one would expect. Actually, he's taking it quite well."

"He took a meeting with me in the hospital. Requested me by name, actually."

"How did he-?"

"Connections, I guess," the boy shrugged. "Maybe he got me through Matt or some other lawyer in the office. I've been an assistant for a few weeks now."

"How was he?"

"He's really something. He wanted to get my papers sorted. He said he could probably get me into Columbia with my credentials."

"Really?" Matt felt warm, all of a sudden. Foggy Nelson. Doing his part for the denizens of New York.

"Yeah. He said there's plenty of precedent for cases like mine, and he might not even have to take it to court." He felt the tension at the sentence.

"But…?"

"But it would mean leaving everything behind. My neighbourhood. Chinatown's all I know, D. They took care of me growing up. Then my sister's going to be all by herself. And who's going to take care of everyone while I'm gone?"

"You can always come back. Wherever you go, home will always be here for you to come back to. And we have more than enough hands to take care of everyone," Matt assured.

Sam sighs, curling in on himself. "And what if I can't make it? All my life I've been… I don't know, some kid tinkering at soda cans and junkyard computers in a grungy garage. It's not like I'm Chinese, but I'm not American, either. I can't speak Cantonese really well, but I'm not a person as long as I'm here. I'm just some floater. I've been invisible all my life and I don't know what it would mean if I were to just… become visible. And I know I can at least be useful here."

Matt wanted to shake him. He was being handed an opportunity. Straight into his lap. Why couldn't he make sense of it? "Don't you want to try, at least? See how far you can get before resigning? You're passionate and you're smart, and that can do a hell of a lot nowadays."

"But what if it's not enough? Do you see where I'm coming from? It's not just that I'm poor as dirt and I've never had the shiny toys. It's that I'm not a person here. And I don't know how to be a person."

"You can figure it out, Samuel. You're a good kid. Adaptable. Just keep fighting the good fight." Matt understood, just a little, what that felt like. "I know you can do a lot of great things, and you can reach a lot more people operating in daylight. Give it some thought, at least."

"And what do you do in daylight, D?"

Matt considered the challenge for a second and took a deep breath. Now was as good a time as any. So he peeled back his mask.

-

"Ex-partners? With Foggy?" Blindspot asked on a slow night a few weeks later. They were making their slow way down a fire escape with some guys tied up on the roof. The police were still four minutes away.

"That's what I said," Matt confirmed.

"Why did you break up?"

"It wasn't working out." It never worked out. Since the day he donned the mask and the moniker, it was a slew of danger and lies that Foggy didn't deserve. "Daredevil stuff. Vigilante stuff. It's hard to hold up a law firm together when half of the partnership is creatively breaking the law every other night. I don't blame him."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. But what about personally? Was the Daredeviling too much for him?"

"What do you mean? We're still best friends. We still meet up a few nights a week."

"Then why did you guys get divorced?" Matt halted in his spot. Because what?

"What? We were never married."

"Sorry. Foggy mentioned being divorced. I assumed… Nevermind. Partners. Sure. I mean, he seems like a good guy and clearly you care about each other-"

But Matt was still frozen at all the implication. "As a point of clarification, we never dated either. We are very platonic best friends. We aren't business partners anymore, but we're best friends, like we always were."

"Oh. Huh. Hm."

And they were silent as the sirens make their way to the scene.

-

Foggy was laughing at Matt. No, that wasn't a generous explanation of the situation. Foggy was laughing at the situation. At the notion.

"I mean, we were a little married, buddy."

Matt frowned at him from above his cappuccino.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, we hung out every day and we shared all our expenses. That's a little married. And there was all the fretting. I fretted over you constantly. Like a little 50s housewife waiting for her husband when he would come home late from his corporate downtown job."

"And now?"

"Now I trust Sam to take care of you," Foggy informed him, sipping at his iced syrup monstrosity. Then he admitted quietly, "I do still fret, though."

"Oh. But we never…"

"No we never dated." There was a lurch to Foggy's being. Agreeing too casually. Forcefully. "Why didn't we?"

Matt gulped. There were a million reasons. The fretting was one of them. The dissolved business, another. The angry scar along Foggy's stomach. The fact that both of them had only ever dated women. Matt's inadequacy when it came to the easy, tranquil normalcy of Foggy. Because Matt was hardly a person. And Matt didn't fit into that picture of cozy, upper middle-class, joint income normalcy no matter how hard he tried.

But better to be seen and out in the sun, unfettered by the chains of shade, right? What was he, after all, if not the Man Without Fear?

"I didn't know that was an option. Is it an option, Foggy?"

-

Sam radiated a satisfied I-told-you-so-ness for months afterward. Matt felt it as he and Foggy dropped him off at Columbia, an engagement ring already having made it on their fingers. It was a recent development. Matt frowned at the boy like he always did nowadays, but carried his suitcase through the doors anyway. Foggy was reading off a list of chores he had to maintain, as if Sam hadn't all but taken care of his sister and himself for the past few years.

"Well, I guess that's the last of it," Foggy said, setting down the last box in the dorm. It wasn't a lot. Sam packed light. "Be good and don't party too much. Never try weed because it will kill you-"

"Foggy was a hardcore stoner in college," Matt supplied.

"Focus on your studies-"

"And he was always looking at the women-"

"And eat your vegetables."

"I'm not even going to dignify that one."

Sam laughed as he toppled down onto his naked bed. "Thanks, guys."

Just then, his roommate walked in.

"Oh? Hey. I'm Liam. I guess we'll be rooming for the next little while." The young students shook hands.

And the men took their cue to leave. Matt ushered Foggy out the door with a wave over his shoulder.

"Come back home when you're an engineer, kid," he called back.

As the door shut, he heard a casual, "Your dads seem nice," and a full bellied laugh in agreement.

**Author's Note:**

> Set during the Soule run where Daredevil is a very secret identity to the public again.
> 
> Yeah, so i think that Sam has some good character moments but not, like, a lot of strong characterization. I ran with his tendency towards the reckless, his youth, insecurity, and zeal for being useful.
> 
> I also think Soule writes kind of weak relationships so I wrote in a scenario where Daredevil actually kind of likes having Blindspot around and Blindspot has reason to keep going to Matt for hero advice.
> 
> Also, justice for Sam, because undocumented immigrants deserve rights, and there are avenues for legal protection, probably. He deserves to really get into tech and be allowed to be in tech.
> 
> Threw in some mattfoggy because why not.


End file.
